ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY WON'T LOOK LIKE FRANCE:

God, Man, and the Common Weal (Reuel Marc Gerecht, August 8, 2005, Wall Street Journal)

The odds are still very good that most of Iraq's Sunni Arabs don't want civil war. Historically ferocious advocates of a highly centralized state, Sunni Arabs, as they come to terms with their reduced prestige and power, are likely to embrace federalism, a non-negotiable principle for the Kurds, especially if the Shiites and Kurds design a system that divides the country's oil wealth equitably. (Most of Iraq's energy resources lie in the Kurdish-dominated North and the Shiite South). Led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the traditional Shiite clergy has been remarkably forbearing in demanding the return of Shiite mosques given to Sunnis by Saddam. As mosques have gone, so likely will go oil.

The fate of Baghdad--mythically a Sunni town that is in fact majority Shiite--may complicate federalist sentiments. In doing so, however, it also healthily binds together the two communities, especially their more secularized elites. Continued and growing participation of the Sunni Arabs, however, may not grant Washington any surcease to suicide bombers. The Sunni elite is increasingly participating in part precisely because it has limited and diminishing influence over the young Iraqi men who fight alongside, and aid and abet, foreign holy warriors. But this cooperation should be enough to keep the Kurds and the Shiites from taking large-scale revenge on the once-dominant community. As long as revenge killings remain small-scale, the constitutional process will likely roll forward and over the Sunni Arabs who want to make compromise and cooperation tantamount to communal suicide.

It isn't clear yet how much federalism the Shiites, in particular the traditional Shiite clergy led by Ayatollah Sistani, are willing to swallow to avoid the possibility of an irreparable break with the Kurds, who will not cede much of the independence they've gained in the last 10 years. Ayatollah Sistani and other senior clerics strongly disliked the Transitional Administrative Law's article 61(c), which gave veto authority to any three Iraqi provinces where two-thirds of the people vote against the approval of a constitution. This article was the handiwork of the Kurds, although it also guarantees Arab Sunnis, assuming they vote as a bloc, the ability to reject any basic law.

As a community, the Shiites are well aware of how much the Kurds endured under Saddam (though they usually mention Kurdish suffering after they mention their own). Arabism, the intellectual engine behind Baghdad's recurring savagery towards the Kurds, is quiescent, if not dead, among Iraq's Shiites, since Sunni pan-Arabism was also used as a vehicle to deny Shiites their separate identity. However, Iraq's Shiite Arabs, especially their divines, have usually been pretty staunch nationalists. And the healthy marriage of federalism to democracy is often hard for the Shiites to appreciate, since it can easily be seen as a means to cheat them, once again, of the pre-eminence they should have had since the foundation of the Iraqi state in 1921.

However, the Shiite community isn't monolithic: The Shiite South has always maintained a certain distance from the traditional clergy in Najaf and the merchant elite of Baghdad. Sitting atop so much oil, and impoverished by Sunni Baathist Baghdad for decades, federalism has greater appeal in the South. Substantial checks and balances exist within the Shiite community on virtually every sensitive subject--nationalism, federalism, oil-wealth distribution, anti-Americanism, relations with Iran, political Islam, and theocracy. These differences will only grow as the Iraqi Shiite community matures politically and economically. Irrespective of the compromises demanded by the Kurds and Sunni Arabs, these internal Shiite differences are now likely sufficient to ensure that the political center will hold among the Shiites, the sine qua non for progress in Iraq.

This center may, however, be comfortable with a marriage of Islam and politics that many Americans fear and loathe. Indeed, a powerful bond between the Sunni and Shiite Arabs may likely be an increased stress on their common cultural and religious traditions. Many Kurds, too, may not find this as upsetting as many Western commentators believe.

Sharia or Islamic family law, probably the most resilient aspect of the Holy Law since it culturally underpins the highly stable Muslim home, may make some comeback in Iraqi law and in the new constitution. In all probability, this process will not be a Trojan horse, allowing for the subversion of democracy itself. As long as women have the right to vote and the Iraqi Parliament remains the supreme chamber for political debate--and neither is seriously in question--then the inclusion of some aspects of Islamic family law into Iraq's civil code may well reinforce democracy's chances. Iraq's nascent representative system, blessed by both Shiite and Sunni legal scholars, will gradually and inevitably open for public debate all aspects of the Holy Law and its proper place in a democratic society. The key is to begin the evolution by pulling mainstream clerics into the discussion. Americans of a feminist disposition should realize that equal rights between the sexes is not a precondition for the growth of democracy. If this were so, Western democracy never would have developed.

The secularization of religious discussions in Iraq is already very far advanced--just compare the Iraqi clerical discussion of constitutional government at the time of Iran's 1905-1911 Constitutional Revolution with the debate today and you will quickly see how successfully Western ideas, first and foremost democracy, have redefined or submerged older Islamic ideals hostile to representative government. The democratic government Iraqis are trying to build will have much more real-world appeal and traction in today's Middle East than the very liberal democracy that many Americans in the occupation's Coalition Provisional Authority and in Washington wanted to build in 2003.

It would seem wise of them to avoid egalitarianism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2005 03:05 PM